Toad Sky-High

In some of my thesis research, I cam across this funny story about Walter Scott, one of the fathers of the Stone-Campbell Movement. It comes from an article by D. Newell Williams out of Discipliana (Vol. 56, No. 3; Fall 1996)entitled "Bringing A Vision to Life: Walter Scott and the Restored Church."

... though never an extemporaneous preacher, Scott was attentive to his audience, and could respond to particular circumstances. The story has often been told how once, when preaching on the atonement, Scott noticed that his audience was going to sleep. thus, he abruptly addressed himself to the young boys on the front row. Discovering that they were familiar with a game called "toad sky-high" (a game in which one leans a plank on a stone, places a toad on the lower end of the plank, then pounds the elevated end of the plank with a stick), he proceeded to happily tell the children about playing this game when he was a boy in Scotland. The boys laughed. Changing his demeanor, Scott informed the boys that toad sky-high was really a bad game, since the toad often died. He continued with a description of a toad's death so vivid that some to [sic] the boys began to cry. Turning to their parents he declared, your children are weeping over the death of a toad, while you have been sleeping through the story of the death of your Lord!